In his famous Multiple Intelligences Theory from 1983, Howard Gardner suggests that all individuals have personal intelligence profiles that consist of combinations of seven different intelligence types. These intelligences are verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic, musical-rhythmic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal (Gardner 1983, 1993). Since then, Gardner has added an eighth intelligence type to the list, that of naturalist intelligence, and also suggested the existence of a ninth intelligence type, that of existentialist intelligence (Gardner 1999).

The purpose of this paper is to outline a lesson plan that caters for these intelligence types and at the same time optimises students’ talking time. The lesson is aimed at secondary school-level students of English as a foreign language (EFL) and focuses on a recurring festival: Christmas. In order to maintain maximal student activity and interest throughout the lesson, it comprises a variety of language activities and teaching techniques. Special attention has been paid to co-operative learning and peer teaching, because, as pointed out by e.g. Anita Woolfolk, the best teacher for a student is another student (Woolfolk 2001).

The sample lesson

There are eight phases in the lesson. During Phase One, the teacher introduces the teaching goals. S/he tells the students that after the lesson they will be able to talk about food and objects relating to Christmas (including making suggestions, agreeing and disagreeing). They will also be able to ask their friends about the way they celebrate Christmas and to describe their own Christmas traditions.

For Phase Two, the teacher hands out a worksheet containing two columns of Christmas-related vocabulary items (homework from the previous lesson). One column lists English words and the second words in the students’ mother tongue. The students’ task is to match the English words with their mother-tongue equivalents.

Phase Three involves independent learning stations, i.e. pre-designated places in the classroom where each place has been allocated to a specific type of language task. The teacher displays the correct answers on an OH transparency and then divides the class into five groups. S/he next provides each student with an individual worksheet and invites the groups to work at five learning stations (one group per station). The students are told that although they work as groups, each student must fill in all answers in his or her worksheet. They are also told that there are no correct answers at their disposal and that at five-minute intervals (timed and announced by the teacher) the groups have to move on to the next learning station.

The individual worksheet could look like this:

Station A
Spot the errors in the picture

Station B
Which of the things can you;

(a) find in a forest?
(b) buy in a department store?
(c) make yourself?
(d) eat?
(e) wrap up in a parcel?
(f) put into your pocket?

NOTE that can do many of these things with some of the things.

Station C
(a) What presents does Sheri want?

(b) Where does she send her letter?

(c) How will she get her presents?

(d) What will she do when she wakes up at Christmas?

Station D (a) What are the Christmas words?

(b) Which is the extra word?

Station E.
Fill in the missing words:

Rudolph, the [1] reindeer [1]
had a very [2] nose. [2]
And if you ever saw him,
you would even say it glows.

All of the other [3] [3]
used to laugh and call him [4]. [4]
They never let poor Rudolph
join in any reindeer [5]. [5]

Then all the reindeer loved him
as they [9] out with glee, [9]
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,
you'll go down in [10]! [10]

At Station A there is a detailed picture of a living-room decorated for Christmas (suitable pictures can be found in course books and on the internet or they can be created or modified by the teacher for the present purposes). There are various kinds of mistakes in the picture, both misspellings (e.g. in Christmas greetings) and logical inconsistencies (e.g. a wall calendar displaying July the 31st or an object placed upside down). The students’ task is to spot as many mistakes as possible and list them in their individual worksheets.

At Station B students have to categorise given objects according to what one can do with them, for example:

Which of these things can you
(a) find in a forest?
(b) buy in a department store?
(c) make yourself?
(d) eat?
(e) wrap up in a parcel?
(f) put into your pocket?

At Station C there is a computer preset to show a video clip selected from the Video Nation website http://www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/feature/christmas. In the video clip, entitled “Christmas List”, a little girl called Sheri is writing her Christmas list to Father Christmas. The students’ task is to watch the video clip and answer the following questions: What presents does Sheri want? Where does she send the letter? How will she get her presents? What will she do when she wakes up at Christmas?

At Station D students have to match the halves of about twenty words that have been chopped in half. One of the words is not a Christmas word. Which word is it?

At Station E there is a computer preset to play “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, selected from the Christmas carol collection presented on the Twelve Days of Christmas website <http://www.12days.com/library/carols/default.html>. The students’ task is to listen to the song while reading the song text displayed on the computer screen. When the students have listened to the song they have to turn away from the screen and fill in the missing words in their individual worksheets (indicated by numbered gaps in the song text).

During Phase Four, when all learning stations have been visited by all groups, the teacher divides the students into new groups. In groups of three or four, they compare their worksheet notes and agree upon the correct answer for each task.

During Phase Five, the teacher introduces a communicative task requesting students to move around in the classroom and interview their classmates about their Christmas habits (this is a modified version of a task entitled “On Christmas Eve”; Christison 2005). More specifically, the students have to find out at what time their friends normally get up, go to bed, have breakfast, have lunch, have dinner, exchange presents, and watch television. They also have to make notes in specially-prepared individual worksheets provided by the teacher. A typical worksheet could look like this:

name

gets up

goes to bed

has breakfast

has lunch

has dinner

exchanges presents

watches televison

Ten minutes later, during Phase Six, the teacher invites the students to compare their notes in order to specify the range of times that people prefer to perform the various activities. What is the biggest time difference between the earliest time and the latest time at which someone prefers to perform a certain activity?

For Phase Seven, the teacher organises the students into new groups consisting of about five people. Their task is to find out which activity has the biggest time difference and to discuss the possible reason/s for this. (Depending on the cultural and/or religious background of the students the most probable outcome will be either ‘exchanging presents’ or ‘watching television’.)

During Phase Eight, finally, the teacher asks the students to start working on individual essays entitled “What Christmas means to me” based on the group discussions and to finish the essays at home for the next EFL lesson. S/he also challenges the students to incorporate as many different Christmas words as possible into their essays.